Concrete crisis: Why are schools struggling to pay for repairs?
The amount of money available for schools to repair and maintain their buildings has fallen by more than a quarter since 2010 (28%), a real terms cut of £2.2bn per year.
Since the Conservatives formed a majority government in 2015, the Department for Education’s capital budget has averaged £5.6bn per year – compared with £7.8bn per year in the last four years under Labour.
That is the money earmarked for things like construction, maintenance and repair work.
More than 100 schools and colleges have been told to shut buildings, partially or completely, because of concerns about the safety of the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) used to construct them.
The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has denied suggestions that he is to blame for cuts to schools’ repair and maintenance budgets, saying it was “completely and utterly wrong” to suggest he was to blame for failing to fully fund a programme to rebuild England’s crumbling schools.
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PM denies limiting school repairs fund
Funding for the repair and maintenance of schools has fallen significantly since 2010, when Conservative education secretary Michael Gove scrapped Labour’s Building Schools for the Future Programme.
Since then, capital spending has remained far below levels seen under Labour, dropping to just £5bn during the pandemic before rising to £5.3bn last year.
Yet the department’s overall budget has grown significantly, from an average of £72bn per year during Labour’s last four years in office to £87bn under the Conservatives, a real terms increase of 23%.
The entirety of that increase has gone into the department’s fund for day-to-day spending, its resource budget, which has received an £18bn boost. At the same time, the capital budget has been cut by £2.2bn.
As a result, many schools in need of funding for repairs and maintenance have been raiding their resource budgets, which are used to pay salaries and energy bills, to fund capital projects.
A report released in June by the National Audit Office found that, in 2021-22, 71% of academy trusts used resource funding for capital projects, transferring a total of £518m from their day-to-day running costs – despite growing pressure on teachers’ pay and rising energy bills.
“The government’s own analysis shows that the school estate is in a very poor state of repair – that includes ceilings and concrete, but it also includes gas and electric,” says Luke Sibieta, a research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
“Those sorts of issues can become urgent, so it’s not surprising at all to be seeing schools raiding their day-to-day budgets to spend on capital budgets – those capital expenditures may well be urgent.”
Schools’ electrical and plumbing systems are also in urgent need of repair
The report by the National Audit Office found, based on data from 2020, that schools required £8.5bn of repairs for issues “key to the building remaining usable and safe”, as well as £425m for things that “could present major issues”.
Among the most serious items were £2.5bn of repairs needed to schools’ electrical services, and £2.1bn to mechanical services such as plumbing.
Within the capital budget, the money ring-fenced specifically for maintenance and repairs has also fallen significantly in recent years.
The Department for Education spent £5bn on maintenance and repairs in the two years to March. Accounting for inflation in the construction sector, that is a drop of 20% compared with the two years to March 2017.
“It’s not surprising that we’re seeing a crisis in school repairs and school maintenance,” says Mr Sibieta.
“The government has been underinvesting in school repairs and maintenance for around 10-15 years now. The amount of spending falls short of what the government itself thinks it needs.
“As part of the spending review in 2020, the Department for Education thought we needed around £5.3bn per year just to repair and maintain the existing school estate. In the end, the Treasury allocated around £3bn per year.”
Sarah Skinner, chief executive of the Penrose Learning Trust, has been forced to close 12 classrooms at Surrey’s East Bergholt High School due to the presence of RAAC.
She has secured six temporary replacements, but hasn’t been told when they’ll be available.
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“Once we get the porta cabins, we will get children back, but they won’t have specialist resourcing,” she says.
“We think it will be months before the remedial works can be undertaken – at a huge cost. So, I am worried about getting children back in classrooms before Christmas.”
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The Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) has pulled its support for the assisted dying bill.
The announcement is a blow to supporters of the bill ahead of its return to the House of Commons on Friday.
It comes as plans to legalise assisted dying in Scotland passed the first stage this week.
Dr Lade Smith, president of the RCP, said: “The RCP has reached the conclusion that we are not confident in the Terminally Ill Adults Bill in its current form, and we therefore cannot support the Bill as it stands.”
The move is significant because, under the bill’s current stipulations, a panel including a psychiatrist would oversee assisted dying cases.
The RCP outlined a number of issues it had with the current bill, including: the bill not making provision for unmet needs, whether assisted suicide is classed as a treatment or not, what the psychiatrists’ specific role on the panel would be, and the increased demand the bill puts on psychiatrists.
If the college support remains withdrawn, and the bill passes, it isn’t clear what effects it may have.
Kim Leadbeater, the MP behind the bill, has confirmed it will include a clause that means anyone who does not want to be involved in the process will not have to do so.
Supporters of the bill argue it would ease the suffering of dying people, while opponents argue it would fail to safeguard some of the most vulnerable people in society.
MP Kim Leadbeater talking to Sky News
Questions over the bill
The more prominent role of a psychiatrist in the bill came about after a previous amendment.
Initially, the bill said that after two independent doctors approved an assisted dying case, it would then need to be further approved by a High Court judge.
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But MPs on the parliamentary committee scrutinising the bill voted to remove that clause in March.
Instead, Ms Leadbeater proposed a voluntary assisted dying commissioner that included an expert panel with a psychiatrist.
She said this was a “strength, not a weakness,” but opponents of the bill disagreed, saying removing the High Court judge “fundamentally weakens protections for the vulnerable”.
However, amid changes and amendments to the original bill, there has been growing concern about safeguarding and timeframes, Sky News political correspondent Ali Fortescue reported.
Friday’s debate was already delayed from 25 April, to give MPs more time to consider amendments.
If the bill passes on Friday, it will move to the House of Lords, where it will undergo similar legislative stages, and if it passes that too, it won’t come into effect until at least 2029, after its implementation was delayed.
AI civil servants and sending human workers out of London are at the heart of the government’s plans to cut costs and reduce the size of the state bureaucracy.
Shrinking the civil service has been a target of both the current Labour and recent Conservative governments – especially following the growth in the organisation during the pandemic.
From a low in 2016 of 384,000 full time workers, in 2024 there were 513,000 civil servants.
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The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is claiming a new swathe of tools to help sift information submitted to public consultations could save “75,000 days of manual analysis every year” – roughly the work of 333 civil servants.
However, the time saved is expected to free up existing civil servants to do other work.
The suite of AI tools are known as “Humphrey”, after Humphrey Appleby, the fictional civil servant in the TV comedy Yes, Prime Minister.
The government has previously said the introduction of AI would help reduce the civil service headcount – with hopes it could save as much as £45bn.
Speaking today, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle appeared to take aim at expensive outsourcing contracts, saying: “No one should be wasting time on something AI can do quicker and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayer pounds on outsourcing such work to contractors.”
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March: 10,000 officials could go
Move outside of London
Other money-saving plans announced today include moving 12,000 civil servants out of London and into regional hubs – with the government hoping it can save almost £100m by 2032 by not having to pay for expensive leases of prime office space in the capital.
Currently, 95,000 full time civil servants work in London.
Tens of millions of pounds a year are expected to be saved by the closure of 102 Petty France, which overlooks St James’s Park, and 39 Victoria Street, which is near the previous location of New Scotland Yard.
In total, 11 London offices are slated for closure, with workers being relocated to the likes of Aberdeen, Belfast, Darlington, Bristol, Manchester and Cardiff.
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The reforms of the civil service are being led by Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden – one of Sir Keir Starmer’s most influential ministers.
Mr McFadden said: “To deliver our plan for change, we are taking more decision-making out of Whitehall and moving it closer to communities all across the UK.
“By relocating thousands of civil service roles we will not only save taxpayers money, we will make this government one that better reflects the country it serves. We will also be making sure that government jobs support economic growth throughout the country.
“As we radically reform the state, we are going to make it much easier for talented people everywhere to join the civil service and help us rebuild Britain.”
The government says it wants senior civil servants out of the capital too – with the aim being that half of UK-based senior officials work in regional offices by the end of the decade.
The government claims the relocations and growth of regional hubs could add as much as £729m to local economies by 2030.
Pat McFadden is leading the changes to the Civil Service. Pic: PA
Union welcome – cautiously
Unions appear to cautiously welcome the changes being proposed.
All of Prospect, the PCS and the FDA say it is positive to see better opportunities outside of the capital.
However, they have asked for clarity around whether roles may be lost and what will be offered to people transferring.
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Fran Heathcote, the general secretary of the PCS union, said: “If these government proposals are to be successful however, it’s important they do the right thing by workers currently based in London.
“That must include guarantees of no compulsory redundancies, no compulsory relocations and access to more flexible working arrangements to enable them to continue their careers should they wish to do so.”
Two US senators are calling on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “exercise [the department’s] authority” and change a provision affecting taxes on corporate holdings of digital assets.
In a May 12 letter, Senators Cynthia Lummis and Bernie Moreno suggested Bessent had the authority to change the definition of “adjusted financial statement income” under existing US law in a way that could reduce what digital asset companies pay in taxes. The proposed adjustment was suggested as a way to modify a provision of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022.
“Our edge in digital finance is at risk if US companies are taxed more than foreign competitors,” said Lummis in a May 13 X post.
According to the two senators, the proposed modification would provide “relief to corporations that invest in digital assets.” Lummis has been one of the most outspoken digital asset advocates in Congress, while Moreno took office in January after crypto-backed political action committees spent roughly $40 million to support his 2024 Senate race.
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The Inflation Reduction Act, which went into effect in 2023, imposes a 15% minimum tax on companies that report more than $1 billion in profits for three consecutive years. The measure would seemingly include unrealized crypto gains and losses, leading to Lummis’ and Moreno’s calls for the Treasury Department to “act swiftly.”
Senate awaiting second vote on stablecoin bill
The call from the two senators came as lawmakers in the Senate are expected to consider another vote on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act — legislation to regulate payment stablecoins in the US. A motion for consideration failed to move forward in the Senate on May 8 due to Democratic lawmakers pushing back on Donald Trump’s ties to the crypto industry.
Lummis, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, suggested that she would continue to support digital asset regulation. The Senate could take up another vote in a matter of days.
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